"Truly, it is the indescribable sweetness of contemplation which you give to those who love you. In this you have shown the tenderness of your charity, that when I had no being you made me; and when I strayed away from you, you brought me back again to serve you and commanded me to love you." The Imitation of Christ

Tuesday, 4 July 2006

Feeling sorry for myself...

...Of course, I have no right to feel sorry for myself. There are lots of people who are much worse off than me. Or so I keep telling myself.

The problem is, it isn't easy to believe this when your head is throbbing from a point just inside your lower jaw! Yes, I have toothache. I have spent the last two days curled up on my sofa under the duvet (yes, I did say "under" - I have a very cold flat) with my head on a hot water bottle. I wouldn't mind, but there's nothing on TV (watching tennis ranks, in my humble opinion, somewhere below watching paint dry for entertainment value) and I the pain means I can't focus properly, so reading isn't much of an option. Eating, one of my other favourite occupations, is also not on the menu, for fairly obvious reasons.

I know it's self-inflicted. I should have gone to the dentist as soon as the filling fell out. But, it didn't hurt then. And I am frankly so terrified of dentists that I have to be in real pain before I can bear to cross the threshold of a dental surgery. It's stupid, it's irrational. But it's real. I am reduced to a howling, shaking lump. Once, I was so frightened that I clamped my jaw shut as a sort of reflex. Unfortunately the dentist's fingers were inside my mouth at the time. He wasn't happy.

The irrational part comes in when I consider that I've had bits of my body cauterised, biopsied, stitched and cut out, and I've demanded to watch. I react badly to general anaesthesia, and so I've had my tibia sawn open and screwed back in a different position while cracking jokes with the anaesthetist and the surgeon (not sensible behaviour when the latter is wielding what looks like a Black and Decker with a little fancy attachment on it!) But the minute I sit in a dentist's chair, I want to start screaming. And that's just for the initial examination...

The upshot of all this is that I left the hole in my tooth until I got an infection. And the pain got bad. The downside is that now no self-respecting dentist will go anywhere near the offending tooth until the infection has cleared up.... and by then, it might just have stopped hurting....

2 comments:

I'm very sympathetic. I'm sitting here with gauze in my mouth and on painkillers. I just got all four of my wisdom teeth removed this morning in the hospital. I'm such a whimp that I insisted on being put out cold for dental surgery. And you know what? I'm glad I did!

Year For Priests

About Me

I have given up describing myself as a young Catholic woman, but I don't quite feel ready to call myself "middle aged." Is there anything in between?
I came back to the Church in September 1992 after what I consider to be a Damascus Road conversion, and guess you could call me a Trad by inclination.
I'm a single woman living and working in the world (as a Science teacher), and I took private vows in December 2002.